Absolution (amen)
by The Readers Muse
Summary: <html><head></head>What was it Rick had said all those months ago? Looks like there's a new sheriff in town.</html>


**Disclaimer:** I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.

**Authors Note #1:** Inspired by a personal theory that came out of a discussion on tumblr regarding a possible avenue for Beth's character arc and development during and beyond season five. The theory is, after everything is said and done, Beth decides to stay with the hospital community rather than continue on with Team Prison.

**Warnings:** This drabble is meant to fit in sometime during or post season five. This is Beth-centric and will contain mild religious references, season four-five spoilers, adult language, and a frank discussion of depression, suicide and a past suicide attempt in terms of season two canon.

**Absolution (Amen)**

The decision to stay at the hospital felt like the first choice she'd made wholly for herself since that day on the farm. The day she'd taken a piece of jagged mirror to her wrist and –

It had hurt.

That was what had surprised her the most.

It was what ended up bringing her out of it, clearing her head in a way Maggie and the others – even Daddy – hadn't been able to. It had startled her. It had been emotional and physical whip-lash, cool, bright and unapologetic as the weight of what she'd just done, what she'd_ tried_ to do, crumpled like her expression when Maggie and Lori managed to wrench the bathroom door open.

Pain seemed like a pretty common metaphor these days.

Whether you wanted it or not, getting hurt always seemed to be part of the package.

* * *

><p>Watching the others drive off felt like an unwelcome coming of age.<p>

It felt like what she'd figured her first drink _should_ have been like. Like a mixture of daring and muted disappointment. Like the fog of determination obscuring the razor blade of resignation that would undoubtedly settle in once the thrill had faded. When all she'd gotten at the time, as the lancing bitterness of moonshine slithered across her tongue, was a blanket of grief and that awkward, half-sober realization that despite Daryl pushing forty, she was clearly the only adult in the room.

She'd thought that maybe Maggie and Glenn would have understood, understood what she was trying to do here. Why she was so determined to stay. Why she _had _to stay. She'd thought that maybe, just maybe, they would have wanted to stay together – just like Daddy would have wanted.

Daddy would've understood.

He would've made a case to stay.

* * *

><p>But they didn't.<p>

And Daddy wasn't here.

* * *

><p>They didn't let it go easy, but in the end they decided to stay with Rick and try for Washington. And like the scar she still bore, jagged and hidden underneath half a dozen elastic bands and bracelets, it <em>had<em> hurt.

It hadn't been a betrayal, or even an abandonment. Rather, a disappointment.

Rick was wrong. Wrong to want to let them fend for themselves.

The people here were good. They'd been lied to, is all. They deserved a second chance.

He'd done it once before, taking in the people from Woodsbury.

_How was this any different?_

She'd bit her lip as they'd stood, ringed out in front of her, forcing herself to swallow the words she wanted to say, feeling each and every cut as they went down like broken glass to the soul. Knowing that at the end of the day, the wounds they'd cause – the ones that would fester and rot in the long months that would stretch out ahead – were simply not worth it.

She didn't mean them anyway.

_It was a defense mechanism. _

Daryl had taught her that.

* * *

><p>Because these were her people.<p>

_Her family._

And now they were parting ways.

The reality of that decision cut deep in a way she hadn't experienced in a long time.

But not enough to change her mind.

And at the end of the day, she supposed that was the real crux of the matter.

* * *

><p>It wasn't goodbye.<p>

Not really.

More like a long term version of 'see you later.'

Because they were coming back, once they'd got Eugene to Washington, they'd promised.

She had faith that they'd make it back to her.

Faith that they'd be coming back to stay.

* * *

><p>She'd always thought that growing up meant you'd get all the answers.<p>

That you'd understand everything you hadn't when you were younger.

That the hard part was over.

It was the biggest lie she'd ever told herself.

Because now more than ever, she figured it was the reverse that was true.

The older she got, the harder she realized life actually was.

That there were no such things as easy answers or perfect points of view.

That some people were just fine with not getting along.

To be honest, growing up was a dirty, frustrating, complicated business and she didn't appreciate it one bit.

* * *

><p>She supposed it was important to point out that it hadn't been as simple as her making the decision and them leaving.<p>

Not even close.

They'd stuck around for nearly a week.

Helping what was left of Grady Memorial pick up the pieces - after the uprising she'd inadvertently started simmered down into something close to normalcy. They spent the first few days regrouping. Getting to know the people, consolidating their supplies, sifting through the rubble of the upper floors.

Making sure she was safe.

_That she was sure._

That _yes_ she'd thought this through.

And that _no, _she_ didn't_ plan on changing her mind.

All the while trying to talk her out of it – out of staying.

And despite the angry tears and petty frustrations, she hadn't expected anything less.

* * *

><p>She didn't think it was possible to love them more, but this was something she had to do.<p>

* * *

><p>Because the people who'd run this place – 'Upper Management' as they'd called themselves - had been wrong. They'd started with an idea, the idea that control and neatly checked boxes would keep the walkers out. That with an iron fist and very little in the way of mercy, they could carry on as they'd always done. Riding the waves of the end of the world to some grand, picture-perfect finish only they rightly knew the details of.<p>

Only it hadn't worked.

And they'd been liars to boot.

* * *

><p>People are not systems.<p>

They don't accept rigid structures that hurt more than they help.

That rely on fear and brute strength to keep the dangers of idle curiosity at bay.

Whose leadership they cannot see or whose motives remain deliberately unclear.

They weren't meant for it any more than they were meant to be complacent lab rats.

To say different meant going against one's very nature.

From the most basic drives to the complex pathways that define you as a person – that make up who you are and how you interact with the world, the wrongness of this place, of what they'd been doing to their own people, had hung heavy in the air. It had been an oppressive shroud of blackness and deceit that she'd been able to feel – grimy and cloying against her skin – from the very moment she'd woken up in that hospital bed, surrounded by strangers.

Despite the smiles and the talk about everyone being a part of the greater whole – the machine of survival that had supposedly kept this community running since the very beginning, she'd known. She hadn't survived this long without being able to smell a lie in the air. To be able to scent out ill-intent before it had a chance to fester.

Regardless of how our bodies might work, a human being _isn't_ a machine. It doesn't react in predictable ways. It can't be controlled or defined indefinitely, no more than we were made to be easy children of anarchy or the willing subjects of dictatorships. It's the balance between the two that is desired.

* * *

><p>The real mistake Upper Management had made, the reason why everything fell apart, was believing that just because no one had spoken up, rebelled like she had when she'd realized the truth of it, didn't mean that no one ever would.<p>

Nor did it mean it would stop with her gone.

Hope didn't work like that.

Change didn't either.

That was the beauty of it; hope can be slow to evolve, slow to dig in and take root, but once it starts, it's damn near impossible to stop.

* * *

><p>And that was what happened here.<p>

She'd put a crack in the floodgates.

The survivors of Slabtown had done the rest.

They'd taken back their home.

And better yet, like the soul of the building made flesh, they had plans, plans to make it a place where people could thrive again.

_Heal._

* * *

><p>"I don't trust 'em," Daryl had growled one afternoon, three days into their stay, clutching at an empty ration pack like the very contents had dealt him a great injustice.<p>

She'd just sighed, looking up from the clipboard she'd been perusing, double checking the numbers on the latest inventory of medical supplies in the ICU. Wincing as she banged her cast up against the side of the desk.

"You still don't trust Eugene," she pointed out, stretching, catching a shadowed glimpse of Makas lurking in the hall just outside the door – overprotective. He looked better like this, all lanky, red-haired and clean. No longer overwhelmed by the worn FEMA shirt they'd forced him to wear.

He'd told her how they'd ignored him when he'd tried to tell them he'd only been a volunteer. He had the fancy jacket, the badge and all-access pass. But it had only been a temporary position, some sort of work shadow program for university. He'd gotten trapped at the hospital when he'd driven the officer he'd been working under in for chest pains only an hour or two before the barricades fell and the hospital got overrun.

"_That's not the point,"_ they'd told him. _"You need to understand that appearances are important and you have a part to play in making sure there is no panic, that order is maintained until help arrives. They'll be looking to you now. They will need a solid, strong example, someone to turn to, someone to emulate. Don't let them down."_

"That's because mullet is full'a shit," Daryl snorted, haunting the far corner as he did a slow, loping circuit around the room, pausing every so often to inspect the odd piece of equipment, most of it moldering under dust covers. Suspicious and the opposite of still.

It reminded her of a lone wolf, watching and wary, trying to split it's time between two separate packs as family lines tore down the middle.

_It was a feeling she could more than relate to._

"And yet you're following him to Washington," she reminded gently, recalling what Abraham had told her as he'd tried to recruit some of the survivors at the hospital for the journey. No one had taken him up on it. Instead, a few of the nurses had turned to her, asked her if _she _was planning on going.

Her negative had seemed like the death knell to any sympathy the ex-officer could have roosted. And for good reason. These people weren't looking for a cure, they'd been promised as much before and it had been a horror film stuffed into a lie – twisted and dark with the names of missing people and barely remembered faces found abandoned in the darkness of elevator shafts and decomposing flesh.

They didn't need a Hail Mary.

They needed to just be.

_They needed to heal._

"That shit isn't even close to the same and you know it," Daryl snapped, his hair a dark curtain over his eyes as the hand on the butt of his crossbow twitch-twitched with nervous tension.

The small smile she offered him was more out of sympathy that anything. She understood the feeling. Having to choose. In the end, you always ended up letting_ someone_ down.

"Besides, I ain't following the egghead. I'm following Rick." He grunted, letting a hand – dirty and callous-ridden – snap out, as if to encompass the entire hospital and the warehouses that lay beyond. "Who you followin'?" he challenged.

"Myself."

Her answer did a good job of startling them both.

* * *

><p>She watched the small convoy of cars until the dust trail caught up with them. Until there was nothing but a lingering shroud of grainy, red-tinted dirt and a sunset that was threatening to streak across the horizon.<p>

She sighed, feeling the weight of at least half a dozen eyes settle across the small of her back as she shifted in place. She thumbed the hilt of her knife – Daryl's knife – the one he'd told her to keep, pressing it back into her sweaty palm just before they left.

_Just in case. _He'd muttered.

"You alright?" Makas asked, hesitant and quavering from somewhere over her left shoulder. His arm still in a sling from where he'd dislocated it helping her bust out, pulling her out of that dingy elevator shaft, half naked, stinking, quivering and raw. Covered in blood and powdered lye from where 'Upper Management' had tossed her, figuring she was dead after the confrontation in the lobby – after she'd discovered their little secret.

They looked to her now, those that were left. Lord knows why. But she couldn't ignore that she wasn't a part of this. That she'd changed things. Like it or not, she had a responsibility to stay the course, to see them through, sink or swim, as they tried to find their feet in this new world.

It wouldn't be easy.

She knew that from experience.

But it felt right.

She leaned forward, resting her cast against the warm metal railing as she considered how to reply. Hip hitching in her second-hand jeans as the wind sent wisps of her blonde hair fluttering – kissing her cheeks and chin as corn-silk yellow caught in the dying light.

It'd been a long time since she'd felt so certain of anything that she'd almost forgotten what it felt like.

A wan smile quirked across her lips as she set her jaw, blue eyes hopeful but growingly determined as she caught the last distant flash of rusty metal reflecting in the sunshine. A curtain call to an era closed as the dust trail faded and the landscape swallowed them whole.

It was time to get started.

* * *

><p>What was it Rick had said all those months ago?<p>

_Looks like there's a new sheriff in town._

* * *

><p><span><strong>AN #1:** Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think! Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! – This story is now complete.

**Reference:**

*The term _"absolution"_ is an act by which a priest, acting as the agent of Christ, grants forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament of Penance.

*The name _"Makas" _(a male character of my own creation) is a biblical name that means 'an end/growing hope'. (The character's full name, 'Makas Golan' - which didn't make it into the story - literally translates into 'growing hope – revolution.' Referencing the rise of a new order and a new hope for the future under Beth's leadership.


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